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“I love all cats” – The perks of asking the public for their opinion.

I’ve been down to Wildwood a number of times now, and been able to hand out questionnaires as well as do my experiment. There’s two parts to my questionnaires, one side is to be answered before the lynx keepers’ talk and feed begins, and the other side afterwards. Whilst the plan worked in theory, in reality, it’s not so good. People don’t always to think on their day off. I admit, this is a sweeping statement, and plenty of the people I have asked have answered the questionnaires as hoped. Even when they haven’t followed the instructions exactly, they’ve still taken the time to help me, and I definitely appreciate it!

However, as always, there have been mixed responses, clearly showing how some people don’t tend to listen to the information provided. My favourite of these has to be “If re-introduced to the wild, would they not attack people?”, which is a genuine concern amongst the public, although, with improved education and awareness of the species, this could be corrected. A number of respondents were also clearly concerned with the Scottish independence referendum, and wanted lynx to be in England, not Scotland despite a lack of suitable habitat.

So far, all I’ve talked about are the less helpful responses. It cannot be forgotten that I have had many wonderful answers, from all age groups. It has to be said, that in my opinion, children give the best answers though, as demonstrated by this young boy:

“I love all cats so woul[d] love to see them”

The questionnaires are only part of my research though, and I have the fantastic opportunity to do an enrichment-based experiment on the two lynx as well. In my last blog post, (available at: https://rhulgeogplacements.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/starting-my-placement-at-wildwood/), I spoke about what my experiments entailed, but at that time, had not had the chance to start them. By the end of my placement, I will have done 10 repeats of the experiment, and it will hopefully show that the lynx have a preference for either deer or sheep to prey on. The video below shows part of my experiment (despite the poor quality and my lack of editing skills!). The hessian sack furthest from the fence contains a mix of sheep dung and straw, whilst the closest is the roe deer dung and straw mix.

Here is a far better quality video of the lynx at Wildwood from an episode of BBC’s Countryfile in 2011.

To finish of this post, I just want to thank Wildwood for their continued support of my project. Please go to their website (www.wildwoodtrust.org) and look at the recent work they’re doing, including fundraising £50,000 to rescue two brown bears that are currently being kept in awful conditions.